Renewed threat of nuclear wars: Global powers gearing up for space warfare?

Russia vetoed a UN Security Council resolution on April 24, 2024, with regard to the Outer Space Treaty of 1967, probably tabled to prevent it from developing a nuclear anti-satellite weapon, even though China and the US are covertly developing them too.

Thirteen other members of the broader Security Council voted in favour, while China abstained. Japan and the United States had drafted a resolution to uphold Article 4 of the Outer Space Treaty, which does not allow countries to place nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit.

The resolution had an additional 63 nation-wide co-sponsors. It was based on US intelligence reports that Russia was developing a nuclear ASAT device that could damage or destroy a large number of satellites in low-earth orbit. It could also prove a danger to astronauts. Russia denied working on any such device.

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The consensus amongst the world’s strategic thinkers is that space is no longer a place for peaceful and cooperative exploration, but like other quests before it in land and sea on earth, it is the new vista for complex combat and a jockeying for supremacy.

The key player is the US, which enjoys pole position in space currently, but this is being challenged now by China and Russia. The strategic necessity is for the US to stay ahead so that it can’t be overwhelmed. In the event of a war with China rather than Russia, this would prove crucial. Russia is not bent on world domination, despite its ongoing war with Ukraine, and so its programme is essentially geared towards protecting its own assets and survival.

One or more nuclear weapons detonated in space will either suddenly knock out or gradually ‘fry’ the electronics of satellites in their environs. There are some very expensively made American satellites that carry their own nuclear codes and can withstand known anti-satellite weapons.

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The vast majority of over 8,000 satellites in space put up by various countries and private entities are for commercial, communication, navigation, weather monitoring, mapping, surveillance, and other, mainly non-military, uses. These can be badly affected or rendered useless by targeted attacks.

China, Russia, and America are all developing anti-satellite weaponry and deployment vehicles, including the testing of small, reusable, inspection and delivery vehicles.

The effects of nuclear detonations in space are known from multiple nuclear tests conducted by both the US and the Soviets and Russians in the old days. Similar tests have been conducted by the Chinese, and even India has conducted a test. Destroying or disabling one’s own obsolete satellites is a favourite testing method.

There is a broad consensus not to add to the debris in space that, in the absence of gravity, hampers other working satellites for a very long time. Fortunately, even the radioactive debris from the earlier tests burns out upon entering the earth’s atmosphere.

While international protocols have banned more nuclear tests in space, there is nothing yet to universally stop countries from developing anti-satellite nuclear weaponry, their subsequent testing, and their deployment in space.

The destructive power and threatened radioactive fallout of such weapons are looming large. Strategic necessity is urging the leading powers to forge ahead with the development of space weaponry so as not to be outclassed or left behind.

There is also the entire world of cyber attacks that could be used to disable satellites in space. You need successful hacking from right here on earth. Satellites can even be programmed to destroy each other in space in response to earth-based commands. So, processes that enable a satellite to come near to repair or assist another can swiftly be turned to an aggressive purpose.

There are ‘directed energy’ weapons such as lasers, high-power microwaves, radio frequency jammers, and ‘dazzlers’, that can be deployed both on earth and in space. Going after ground stations or communication links can be another way.

With the advent of artificial intelligence (AI), satellites can do a measure of their own thinking to take evasive action, but AI-based fakery could catalyse miscalculations between rivals. How much progress has been made can be gauged by the fact that destroyed satellites can be replaced in 24 hours instead of 6–12 months.

Analysts think the first moments of WWIII, if they were to come, would be a race to knock out or cripple enemy satellites in space for the enormous disruptions they would cause. There are low, medium, and high-orbit satellites for different purposes in close proximity to each other.

The present American thinking is to throw up more and more satellites with replicated abilities and enhancements in different orbits. With over 6,000 American satellites, versus about 600 Chinese ones, out of a total of 8,000 odd orbiting now, it would be difficult, if not impossible, for the enemy to disable or destroy more than a limited number at once. There would, of course, be swift retaliation in seconds.

President Trump caused the establishment of the Space Force in 2019, which is now rapidly growing in terms of both personnel and budgets. The trained specialists are being posted in all branches of the military, especially the air force. There is also the Space Command, the so-called ‘Guardians’, that oversees practically all of space from 100km above sea level onwards.

With space being yet another high-stakes frontier, the US is not stinting on resources to keep itself at the forefront. Budgets and command structures apart, in the space game of dominion, the attacker has the advantage. Satellites in near-Earth orbit travel at 17,000 miles per hour. It’s a swift war, if it comes, and one’s intelligence information must be timely, and action must be preemptive and foolproof.

The writer is a Delhi-based political commentator. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.